Note 43 — Chapter IX · RIO JANEIRO, CAPITAL OF BRAZIL.

The Bank, Exchange, Custom House, and Arsenal, (of late years greatly extended,) are in the Rua Direita. Besides these, the chief public edifices are, the Imperial Palace, a plain brick building; the Old Palace, on the shore, used for public offices; a Public Hospital, alluded to elsewhere, erected in 1841; a National Library, with 800,000 printed volumes, and many valuable MSS.; and a well supported Opera House, which has supplied Europe with some very popular performers, especially in the ballet line, as witness that general favourite, Madame Celeste, who came from Rio, in 1830, with her sister Constance, another danseuse, and appeared for the first time in England at Liverpool, in the divertissement in Masaniello, Sinclair being Auber’s hero. The educational establishments are, the Imperial College of Don Pedro II.; the College of St. José; Schools of Medicine and Surgery; Military and Naval Academy; and many Public Schools. It has also many Scientific Institutions; a Museum rich in Ornithology, Entomology, and Mineralogy; and a fine Botanic Garden. Of Churches there are upwards of fifty, not of much external elegance, but mostly sumptuously decorated in the interior.